Ivan Fischer writes of Mahler's masterpiece, "There is a unique purity and transparency in Mahler's 4th Symphony. The enchanting sleigh bells take us to his inner child, to his dreams of angels, fairy tales, angst and pure, divine love. This child-like symphony needed a different orchestra: no dark tuba, no heavy trombones, no large arsenal of massive brass. A chamber orchestra in fact, where the clarinets act as mock trumpets, the solo violin tunes his strings sharper in order to scare us and the lightness of the whole orchestra lifts us up to his lovely, childish vision of paradise."

Conductor Iván Fischer, a nominee for the 2008 Classic FM Gramophone Award for Artist of the Year, co-founder and Music Director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, has been responsible for creating a vibrant orchestra with an enviable international touring profile which appears at all the major venues and festivals of the world.

As a guest conductor Fischer works with the finest symphony orchestras of the world. He has been invited to the Berlin Philharmonic more than ten times, every year he leads two weeks of programs with the Royal Concert-Gebouw Orchestra. Besides his contract with the NSO of Washington, he works regularly with leading US symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra.

"What no one will deny is the amazing unanimity and precision of the playing here and the superlative quality of the sound engineering. ... the Scherzo goes wonderfully well, with solo violin and clarinets in particular excelling themselves. In the finale, Fischer achieves novelty chiefly through understatement, mindful of the need to avoid coyness at all costs. Miah Persson is ideally cast and as she invokes Saint Martha...it's as if we're transported to a small village church, the organ made tangible in the exquisite treatment of the accompanying instrumental texture." -Gramophone Magazine

"... Fischer's feeling of the Symphony's supple architecture, his ability to caress a phrase or point out a delicious colour without losing the sense of the larger flow, make this one of the most musically satisfying recordings to appear in a long time - worthy to put beside the great Jascha Horenstein / Margaret Price 1970 version, but in spirit wholly individual." -BBC Music Magazine *****

"Unlike some heavy-duty Mahlerians, Fischer and his wonderful Budapest band don't overplay the nightmarish episodes. In the opening movement, Fischer lingers on exquisite instrumental detail without halting the music's momentum. The soprano Miah Persson is angelic in the finale." -Sunday Times